


If You Need Me

by decaf and sleep (kohiii)



Category: Vampire Knight (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Denial, Denial of Feelings, Immortal Kaname, Immortality, Implied Relationships, Inspired by FGO Babylonia, Inspired by Hades and Persephone (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), King of the Dead Zero, M/M, Self-Denial, Supernatural Elements, Underworld, You Have Been Warned, but they're only vaguely mentioned, i took a lot of creative liberties with this prompt, there is a lot of denial in this fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:07:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24446323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kohiii/pseuds/decaf%20and%20sleep
Summary: Prompt: Kaname is immortal and unaging. He forgets everything every 100 years. Zero was once human, and Kaname had to watch Zero grow old and die. Kaname stays alive because of his promise to Zero (that he has actually already fulfilled), but he forgot after 100 years passed. But because he feels like he's forgotten something and someone important, he decides to stay alive. After a long time, Kaname meets a reincarnated Zero again, but neither of them remember their past together.written for the Challenge Accepted!K/Z discord serverevent
Relationships: Kiryuu Zero & Kuran Kaname, Kiryuu Zero/Kuran Kaname
Comments: 9
Kudos: 61
Collections: Challenged Accepted! KZ/ZK





	If You Need Me

"You really should stop coming here, Kaname-san," Zero sighed when he realized just who the intruder was. "How many times have I told you, the living don't belong in the underworld." 

With a wave of his hand, the thorns that had been wrapped around Kaname's legs slowly relinquished their hold on the man and retreated back into the ground. The will-o'-wisps that were dancing around Kaname gave a little screech of laughter and ran away at Zero's appearance, coalescing into bright blue flames that lit up the stone walls. 

Ever since the immortal had first stumbled into the underworld, he had become a frequent visitor. No matter how many times Zero moved the entrance of the underworld, Kaname would somehow find his way back. The monarch couldn't comprehend why anyone would willingly enter the domain of the dead, much less come back over and over again. His kingdom was nothing more than a barren wasteland of cold stone, his subjects ghastly silent spectres. Nothing flourished nor grew here. 

"I'll show you to the exit." 

Warm hands reached for his cold ones, halting him in his steps. 

"Please let me stay with you." 

There was that look in Kaname's eyes again, one that Zero could never really understand. From their very first meeting, something had haunted Kaname, a strange hollowness he never quite managed to conceal from Zero's all-seeing eyes. 

Pulling away, Zero turned towards the stone path. "That's not possible," he shook his head. "Please leave, Kaname-san. Your kind should not be down here." 

In the eerie flickering blue light, he could already see Kaname's skin deteriorating and rotting underneath the influence of the underworld's miasma. At his silent command, giggling wisps dashed by, lighting up the way out with their blue flames. 

_"Time to go!"_ they sang. _"Time for Kaname to go!"_

The immortal grabbed Zero's arm again and stayed stubbornly still, a determined expression on his face. 

"I want to stay with you, Zero." 

That sent the spirits into a titter. A swarm of blue lights surrounded the two of them, dancing merrily around them in circles.

 _"What to do? What to do? He doesn't want to go!"_

Ignoring their shrill cries of laughter, Zero wrenched his arm free from Kaname's skeletal fingers. He grabbed Kaname's decaying hand, lifting it up for the both of them to see. 

"Why do you insist on doing this, Kaname-san? This is no place for the living. Just look at yourself." 

But even as Kaname's skin melted and his bones started to crumble, he continued to smile. Zero thought it looked rather sad. 

"I won't die, Zero. So please, don't ask me to go." 

_"Let him stay! Let Kaname stay and play with us!"_

It was a tempting thought. But Zero was resolute. 

"No. Immortal or not, this isn't a place you should be in." 

\-- 

The only memory he had was of waking up to cold stone. 

The only thing he knew was the purpose he had been given. 

He was the eternal king of the dead, and he would remain in this realm of ghosts until there was no more meaning to his existence. 

As soon as Zero opened his eyes, he was tending to the lost souls trickling into his kingdom. They were bewildered and disbelieving, desolate and inconsolable, angry and destructive. Through it all, Zero stood there, taking in their blame and hatred in silence as they hurled abuse after abuse at him. 

Contrary to their beliefs, he had nothing to do with their deaths, nor could he act against it. Death was an inevitable part of every living creature's life, and Zero's only role was to take care of them after they had departed from the land of the living. The flow of time wasn't something he had control over. 

One of the braver souls had once asked him if he was lonely. 

That was a odd concept. He was nothing more than a tool of the gods, one who had been created to watch over the underworld. A tool had no need to feel anything, much less experience something as mundane as loneliness. 

(At least that was what he told himself. He ignored the strange feeling of _wrongness_ rising inside him at the thought, because the idea that he had been anything more than that was mere delusion _._ ) 

Besides, it wasn't like he was alone -- he had the souls, and he also had the will-o'-wisps. 

The blue spirits had been with him for as long as he could remember. They were childlike creatures that did not understand the concept of emotion, and for that the souls of the dead found the wisps to be unbearably cruel. Their constant laughter seemed to be a mockery of human joy, their bright flames a reminder of the warmth and light that couldn't reach the depths of the underworld. 

_"Zero-kun, sad?"_

_"Zero-kun, want to cry?"_

The will-o'-wisps would gather around him in curiosity as he walked through his kingdom, enveloping him in their unnatural blue light. They were never silent, always whispering and giggling into Zero's ears as he talked to his denizens. Perhaps it was a fortunate thing that he was the only one who could hear their voices, because he was sure that any mortal would've been driven mad by their ceaselessly sinister taunts. 

_"Why Zero-kun never speak with us? Is Zero-kun --"_

_"SCaReD?"_

He wasn't afraid. 

Zero simply didn't want to speak to these _things._ They were moraless creatures with no sensibility, and trying to get anything through to them would simply be a waste of his time. Although they were his designated companions, it didn't mean that he had to humor their strange whimsies.

(Still, sometimes Zero couldn't help but feel like there was someone who had always been by his side, a phantom presence that his heart ached to meet again.) 

\--

"Hello," the brown-haired man greeted him, a polite smile on his handsome face. 

Zero stared, the will-o'-wisps hovering by his side excitedly at the sight of their unexpected visitor. Keeping a wary eye on the intruder, Zero slowly made his way down the rocky path towards the captive figure. 

It was jarring to see a living presence -- moving, breathing, _alive_ \-- standing in this desolate place. 

"How are you here?" Zero asked warily. 

The stranger simply continued to smile, as if he was not worried about the thorny vines wrapped around his legs and torso. "Is this the realm of the undead?" 

Zero's eyes narrowed. So he was one of _those_ people. Occasionally an idiotic mortal would accidentally stumble into Zero's realm, hoping to find their loved ones and begging him to return their souls to the land of the living. It was foolish, of course, and they often regretted their decision as soon as the miasma of the underworld started to seep into their bodies. Those who were wise left before the underworld could take hold of them and keep them prisoner forever.

He turned around, silently commanding the thorns to retreat back into the ground.

"Leave. The living have no business with the deceased." 

To his surprise -- and maybe he really should have expected this -- the intruder followed after him instead. 

"Would it be alright if I stayed here?" the brown-haired man began. "I've searched for this place for so long."

...That was certainly unexpected. Zero paused for a brief second. He'd never had anyone _ask_ to stay in the kingdom of the dead. Why would they? It was dark and poisonous place, one that did not appeal to anyone, alive or dead. 

Was this a trick, a ploy of sorts to convince Zero to be sympathetic to his cause? 

"I don't care, _leave._ " 

"My name is Kuran Kaname. May I ask for yours?" 

"No. I told you, go away. Your kind don't belong here." 

"My kind?" The man -- Kuran -- had the audacity to sound puzzled. 

"Alive. Mortal. The living. Take your pick." 

"Oh," and was that _amusement_ in the other's tone? "That won't be an issue. I'm not able to die, so it's fine." 

The last statement had Zero coming to a proper halt. He turned around for the first time, taking a proper look at Kuran's face. There was no lie in his voice or expression, so that meant Kuran was either serious or delusional. Zero was inclined to believe in the latter, but…

Something in him whispered that the brown-haired man was telling the truth. 

_"An immortal?"_

The wisps that had been clinging to him curiously now scurried forward, their interest piqued by the intruder's words. They surrounded Kuran, giggling and poking at the immortal with their bright blue forms. 

_"Not lying! Not lying!"_

_"Let him stay! We want to play!"_

As Kuran stood there, a damned smile on his face and lit up in the eerie blue of the will-o'-wisps, Zero fought the urge to take the immortal up on his offer. Why the hell was he so affected by a mere stranger anyways? 

(He ignored the frantic beating of his heart. The useless organ had _rejoiced_ at the sight of their intruder.)

_"Let Kaname play with us!"_

"No. I won't repeat myself. You don't belong here, immortal or not. The living should stay away from the realm of the dead." 

\--

He couldn't understand why it kept happening. 

"You again," Zero fought the urge to sigh when he spotted the immortal's familiar form waiting for him. The blue wisps by his side gave a little squeal of excitement as they rushed forward to surround their favorite intruder. "Did I not tell you to stay away from the underworld? So why are you here, Kuran-san?" 

Kuran merely smiled in reply, waiting patiently as the thorny prison surrounding him released its hold on his body. 

"I wanted to see you." 

The blue wisps broke into giggles as they circled the two, dancing merrily at Kuran's declaration. 

_"Kaname wants to see Zero-kun!"_

_"Kaname wants to see us!"_

_"Kaname, want to play with us?"_

_"Let Kaname stay, forever and ever and ever!"_

Zero stared. 

The immortal came all the way down here...simply to meet him? 

No. 

Kuran had to be lying. 

Because that was what the living did -- they lied and lied and lied until the day they died. That was the only logical answer. 

"Please leave," Zero said instead. 

"Why do you never allow me to stay?" 

The sheer stubbornness frustrated him. Did Kuran have no sense of self preservation? 

(Not that he cared about the idiot, he really didn't. Zero just wanted Kuran to stay out of the underworld, that was all.)

"Kuran-san, your body is already decomposing after minutes of being exposed to the underworld." He could see the miasma in the air eating away at the immortal's living flesh. 

It was rare for any living creature to accidentally pass into his kingdom before they were properly dead, but they never lasted long. Zero had repeated himself countless times before -- the living simply did not belong in the land of the dead. And the underworld would do whatever it could to correct every violation of that rule. 

"I'll be fine, Zero-san." And there was that damned _smile_ on Kuran's face again, as if the feeling of his skin being torn away and his bones crumbling didn't hurt him. "I cannot die, remember? My body will regenerate." 

It was true that the immortal's healing factor was already trying to combat the underworld's miasma, and just as quickly as his body was decaying it was trying to knit itself back together. 

Zero couldn't deny that he was tempted by the immortal's offer, despite his doubt of the other man's intentions. 

After the long years of only having the dead and the will-o'-wisps for company, Kuran's presence was like a bright beacon in the monotony of his life. Zero had no idea what loneliness meant until the day he realized that he actually looked forward to the immortal's repeated visits. 

It was unexpected.

It was strange.

It was…maddening. 

He wanted to return to the oblivion of numbness, to forget the feeling of knowing something as painful as loneliness. 

He was only a tool, created by the gods to watch over the kingdom of the dead, so why did it _hurt_ so much whenever he thought about Kuran? What was this desire to give in to Kuran's desire, to stay by the other man's side? Why did he have to _want_ so much? 

His own selfish desires aside, Zero could not allow Kuran to stay here. 

"Being stuck in a constant state of dying and regeneration is no way to live, Kuran-san." He was resolute about this, at the very least. Zero could examine the brokenness and defects of his own heart in private later. "So please, stop asking the impossible of me." 

\--

Long after he had sent Kaname back up to the surface, Zero was still thinking about the impromptu embrace he had been pulled into just before Kaname left. He could still feel the lingering warmth of the immortal's arms around him, could still imagine the heat of Kaname's body seeping into his own cold skin. 

He fought the urge to wrap his own arms around himself to see if he could recapture some of the warmth he'd been briefly granted.

A few of the wisps that had accompanied him were still hovering by his side, their childish voices raised in curiosity. 

_"Zero-kun wants him to stay here?"_

_"Zero-kun wants to leave with him?"_

He ignored them as he laid on the cold stone floor, covering his eyes with an arm as his tumultuous heart ached with denial and desire. 

That was the problem, wasn't it?

He didn't know what he _wanted_ anymore. 

He had thought he wasn't capable of something like want, and now that he was faced with this human emotion he couldn't let go of it. It was such an overwhelming feeling. How could the living bear to live with such a heavy thing? 

_"Zero-kun...wants to leave us?"_

There was something harsher to the wisps' voices now, something angry and unforgiving. 

_"Zero-kun wants to abandon his duties?"_

Did it matter what he wanted? 

He was a tool, placed into the underworld for a single purpose. Leaving behind any of this was unthinkable. All of this was simply temporary madness, one that he would eventually forget once the immortal grew tired of him and finally left him alone. 

(But why did that thought _hurt_ so much? Why did it feel like he was going to lose something important?) 

It was too suffocating to think about all that. The only thing that should have mattered was the purpose that Zero was given, so why did his traitorous heart and mind always wander to something else? He wasn't supposed to be like the fickle mortals that eventually ended up in his realm. He wasn't supposed to have something as mundane as desire.

All he needed was the lonely throne that he had been placed upon. All he needed was the bleak kingdom that he was meant to watch over. 

He wasn't _human,_ so why did he have such _human_ wants? 

Suddenly, the spirits around him let out a loud shriek, a cacophonous noise that startled Zero out of his thoughts. 

_"What is this? What is this? WHAT IS THIS?"_

He quickly opened his eyes, sitting up and wondering if someone or something had managed to slip past the underworld's defenses. But the cause for the wisps' agitation soon became clear. 

"How…"

Zero stared at the carpet of blue flowers around him, growing and crawling over the stone floor as they took root in desolate rock of his kingdom. With slight alarm, Zero realized that his own powers were rampaging out of control, seeping out of his body into the ground below him. Abruptly cutting off the flow, Zero watched as the rapidly expanding blooms stopped growing. 

Without his power to nourish them, Zero expected them to decay and die, like every other living thing in the underworld. But to his consternation, the blue flowers remained there, swaying and waving around in a nonexistent breeze. 

Was this his doing? 

He leaned down hesitantly, his hand brushing cautiously against the soft petals. Zero half expected them to dissipate under his touch, but they remained solid under his fingertips. He couldn't help but marvel the sight of these flowers, thousands of them blooming defiantly in a kingdom that did not welcome their presence. 

The wisps were still agitated, surrounding him with their eerie blue glow as they clung to every inch of him they could find. Zero ignored their cries and pleas. He wondered what the significance of these flowers were. Why had his power conjured up such a bizarre thing?

But the more he tried to think about it, the more it escaped him.

Zero winced, his head aching as he nearly collapsed from the sudden stab of pain. There was something ephemeral calling out to him, straying just beyond his reach. But every time he tried to follow the thin thread, it slipped out of his grasp. 

What was it? 

Was it something he'd forgotten? 

_"Zero-kun! Zero-kun!"_

The last thing he remembered was the sight of endless bright blue filling his vision, and then he knew no more. 

\--

It didn't take long before Zero ended up capitulating to his desire.

"It's beautiful," there was a hint of wonder in the immortal's voice when Zero led him down to the flower field. "I didn't realize anything grew in the underworld." 

"Nothing does." 

Zero offered no further explanation as he sat down in the middle of the flowers. Kaname took a seat next to him, their shoulders brushing together as the other man made himself comfortable.

Under Kaname's persistence, Zero had finally given in and offered the immortal a compromise. While Kaname still wasn't allowed to make the underworld his home, Zero was willing to let Kaname stay for short period of time before he had to return to the realm of the living. 

Without hesitation, Kaname had agreed to the arrangement. 

(And if Zero's heart had ached softly at the look of joy on Kaname's face, well. That was a secret that no one else had to know.) 

"How nostalgic," Kaname murmured softly as he cast his gaze on the sea of blue surrounding them. "I can't remember the last time I saw these flowers." 

"Do you know what they are?" 

Before he could stop himself, Zero had asked the question that had been plaguing him since the day the blooms sprouted out of the barren ground. 

There was a fond smile on Kaname's face, one that was quite unlike any of the other smiles he'd given Zero. "Bluebells, for everlasting love," the immortal's voice was wistful. "That person once told me…" 

He suddenly stopped and frowned. 

Zero frowned too, but for a different reason. There was a strange feeling rising inside him, one that he couldn't quite identify. It felt uncomfortable and hideous, and Zero wanted to turn away from Kaname before the immortal saw the surely ugly expression that was on Zero's face right now. 

"That person?" He struggled to keep his voice neutral. 

Kaname shook his head. "Forgive me, I don't know what I was thinking." 

For a few moments, there was nothing but the heavy silence that lingered between them. 

"I'm afraid my memories aren't quite intact," Kaname began again, testing the words out slowly, glancing hesitantly at Zero as if Zero had been offended in some way. "As a consequence of living for so long...I can no longer remember much of my life." 

That didn't surprise Zero. 

Other than Kaname's abnormal lifespan and his body's inability to truly deteriorate, the brown-haired man was very much human in every other sense of the word. He wasn't like Zero, whose nature as a tool of the gods enabled him to handle the unbearably long stretch of time as it passed by him. Zero did not have the misfortune of losing his memories the way other living creatures did, though perhaps it was more of a curse than a blessing to remember every painful second he had spent in his desolate kingdom. 

"Every century or so, I begin to forget the things I've experienced and the people I've met," Kaname admitted quietly. "I believe it's a coping mechanism my mind developed so that I don't fall into madness. But as a result, I've lost the memories of things that are most precious to me…" 

When Kaname tried to smile at him, Zero looked away. 

He couldn't stand the painful look on the immortal's face, couldn't stand the strained expression as Kaname tried to pretend that losing everything he held dear was something normal. It had to have hurt, to know that you were losing your grasp on the thing that mattered the most to you and being unable to do anything about it. 

Zero stared down at the bluebells, wondering if Kaname would one day forget him as well. 

And that -- that hurt too. 

\--

"Is it true, the story about your lover?"

What. 

Zero leveled an unimpressed look at Kaname. 

The immortal wasn't phased by Zero's response. There was a kind of desperate curiosity in the way Kaname was leaning into him, almost invading Zero's space as he waited for an answer. 

So Kaname was serious. 

"I don't know what story you're talking about, but I have no lover," Zero replied, sighing as he tried to ignore the bright burn of relief in Kaname's eyes. He wasn't about to read too much into things. Was that not the folly of humanity, the innate compulsion to impose their own biases and wishes upon something that was never there to begin with? 

Kaname hummed, dropping his head onto Zero's shoulder and ignoring Zero's attempts to move away. 

"I heard it while I was traveling," the immortal said at last. "The story about the god of the underworld and his bride." 

That was certainly news to him. 

"They say that the god of the dead, in his loneliness, captured the lovely goddess of springtime and brought her down into the underworld. He loved her so much that he could not bear to let her go, even when the king of the gods demanded that he return the goddess to the realm of the living." 

There was something he couldn't quite decipher in Kaname's voice. Some unknown emotion that Zero was not familiar with. 

"At last, the god of the dead reluctantly agreed to let the goddess go. But he tricked her by offering a single pomegranate seed as a parting gift, one that she innocently consumed without realizing his true intentions. It was only when she finally returned to the surface that she realized that his act had forever bound her to the underworld, and that she would eventually have to return to his side." 

Well, Zero could see the gods pulling something like that. The story wasn't entirely without merit.

"I thought that perhaps this garden was hers. You said so yourself, that nothing grew in your kingdom. I could only assume the goddess of springtime had created this sanctuary." 

Zero shook his head. Kaname's logic was not flawed, but he was not in complete possession of the facts. 

Kaname's voice grew quiet, and Zero had to strain his hearing to catch the next part. "The thought of keeping someone by your side forever...I can understand that painful desire. Is what he did so wrong? Is it a sin to do whatever is in your power to bind that person to yourself?" 

Zero was going to ignore that last thought. 

He'd seen the darkness flickering in Kaname's eyes before, but the immortal had always managed to pull the madness back inside him. Zero was not about to provoke it to surface again. 

"I am merely a tool of the gods," he tried to pull away from Kaname once more, but the immortal was persistent. "There is no god of the dead -- if there was one, they have long passed from this world. The gods granted me title of king, but I'm little more than a caretaker for the souls of the deceased. The realm of the dead does not appeal to any of the gods, and I was created to overlook this place in their stead." 

He looked down at his clenched hands. 

That was all he was. A tool with a single purpose. The thought that he would have his own desire, to _kidnap_ someone to keep by his side was ridiculous. 

(He ignored the feeling of _wrongness_ that always protested against this thought. The feeling had only grown stronger as he became acquainted with Kaname, and it frightened him. 

What good was a defect tool?) 

"Zero…" 

"But there is an ounce of truth regarding the pomegranate seed." 

Kaname seemed suddenly very interested in what Zero was saying, and Zero wondered if it was wise to keep talking. 

"The pomegranate seed…?"

Well, whatever. It wasn't like Kaname could do anything with the knowledge anyways. 

"The dead cannot leave my realm because they have already absorbed the miasma that permeates the underworld. When you consume something that belongs to the underworld, you become bound to this place. The souls of the dead, without physical form, feed on the energy in the air." 

Kaname seemed perplexed. 

"Then why am I able to leave freely?" 

To be honest, that was a bit of puzzle to Zero as well. He had wondered if the underworld would take Kaname prisoner as it did any other living creature, but so far that had not happened. It was probably due to the immortal's inability to die, but all Zero had was speculation and conjecture. 

"Your body rejects the miasma," he looked out at the blue flowers. "Your natural healing factor erases the miasma's effects and keeps your body intact. Your body is incapable of consuming the 'food' of the underworld." 

Kaname's voice sounded almost disappointed. "I see." 

\--

"You remind me of someone," Kaname said one day as they sat together, watching the will-o'-wisps play hide and seek in the field of bluebells that swayed and waved in some nonexistent breeze. 

Lilac eyes flickered over to the immortal's pensive form before he turned back to the blue blooms.

"Is that so." 

The subject of their past was not a topic they frequently discussed. Given Kaname's unique condition, there was little Kaname could offer on his history, and Zero wasn't inclined to talk about his own origins. 

"I don't remember anymore but," Kaname reached out with a skeletal hand and laid it on top of Zero's own cold hand. "When I'm with you, the sense of loss isn't as unbearable." 

Zero glanced at their joined hands, taking in the grotesque contrast of his deadly pale skin to Kaname's half rotting flesh. He didn't need another reminder that Kaname didn't belong here. The immortal had his own life, one that he should be living away from the dreary confines of Zero's kingdom. 

It was a cruel joke that the one existence death refused to embrace desperately sought comfort from the one existence death could not let go of. 

"I'm not a replacement for your loneliness," he said instead. Because as beautiful as Kaname's single-minded devotion was, it wasn't _his._ It belonged to the soul that had once walked by the immortal's side, a memory that had carved itself so deeply into Kaname's heart that it survived countless cycles of forgetfulness. 

Kaname's hand tightened around his. 

"You're not a replacement for anything." 

Kaname was a liar.

Zero looked away. 

\--

He was reaching his breaking point. 

Zero had refused to see Kaname for the past few months, using his powers to send the immortal back to the realm of the living every time Kaname managed to find the new entrance to the underworld. He wasn't sure he could face the other man in his current state. 

He was drowning in these feelings that he never asked for, and the turbulent sea of his emotions threatened to drag him down below its waves. 

He wanted it all to end. He wanted to return to oblivion. He wanted -- 

_"You want to be saved!"_

That wasn't true -- that couldn't be true. 

_"You want him to be yours!"_

He didn't. That wasn't possible. 

Zero brushed past the wisps, but they followed him. Their childish voices of glee rose as they saw him finally react to their taunting, and they shrieked with laughter as their bright blue forms wrapped around him. 

_"Zero-kun doesn't want to be lonely anymore!"_

_"Zero-kun doesn't want to stay here anymore!"_

_"Zero-kun doesn't want to carry out his duties anymore!"_

It wasn't true. 

(Liar.) 

Zero could never think of abandoning the duty he'd been given. 

(Liar.) 

Zero was a doll, a puppet, a tool. He didn't have desires of his own. 

(Liar.) 

_"YoU waNt HiM to SaVE yOu!"_

\--

He found Kaname standing in the field of bluebells, lit up by the eerie blue glow of the will-o'-wisps that surrounded him. There was a fistful of the blue flowers in the immortal's hands and a strangely triumphant look in his eyes. 

Zero approached the other man warily. 

Something felt _off._

They stared at each other in silence. 

"Why did you shut me out, Zero?" Kaname asked quietly. "Did I do something wrong?" 

Zero shook his head mutely. 

"Then why?" 

Zero shook his head again. He didn't have a good answer for Kaname. How could he even begin to explain this jumble of emotions that threatened to overwhelm him at any turn? How could he explain the flaws of his own useless heart, the defect organ that refused to function like it was created to do? 

The pain in his heart was for him and him alone. 

"Please leave," the king of the dead finally said. "Please leave, and never come back." 

Because that was what was best for both of them. Kaname would never belong to a place like the underworld, and Zero could never cast aside his duties to stay by Kaname's side. 

"I can't." 

Kaname stepped forward, grabbing Zero's hand and pressing the bundle of bluebells into his palm. The smile he gave Zero was of a sorrowful satisfaction. 

"You told me that if my body consumed something that belongs to the underworld, I'll become bound to this place." 

Yes, but what did that -- 

Oh.

_Oh._

As Zero's fingers numbly closed around the soft petals of his flowers, he realized with horror what was so _off_ about Kaname. What Kaname had done to himself. 

"I consumed it. Your flowers." 

Bathed in the light of the will-o'-wisps, Kaname's body remained whole and intact, his flesh no longer deteriorating and reacting to the miasma as it normally would. 

"This is my pomegranate seed, Zero. I won't let you drive me away from your side again." 

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> as you can tell, i took a lot of liberties with this prompt haha...  
> this was pretty heavily inspired by gilkidu and hades & persephone, but uhhh with a twist 
> 
> i may or may not eventually write a prequel for this fic about their time together, but here were some of the background ideas for this fic:  
> \- kaname and zero knew each other when they were alive  
> \- after zero's death, the gods took him and basically repurposed him for their own needs, plonking him down in the underworld and wiping his memories of his time on earth  
> \- yes, the person that kaname says zero reminds him of is zero himself (lmao)  
> \- no, neither of them remember each other, but they do feel a vague sense of _something_ around each other
> 
> (if it wasn't clear, the first scene actually takes place in between scenes 4 and 5, sorry if that was confusing)


End file.
